Treating Yourself Well

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #ShareYourSummer #CollectiveBias

OK – real talk here. Why do people show themselves the least love? I’m totally guilty of this as well. I’m hard on myself, talk down to myself occasionally and at times I feel like nothing about me is good. I think it’s easy to fall into that rut when things aren’t going your way or you can’t seem to do something you want to do.

Self-love is something I’ve struggled with and still struggle with to this day! But the fact is that for all of my failures, I’m pretty damn awesome. I have a healthy, strong body. I nurture the minds of small children every day. I cook some pretty mean dishes. And my friends can vouch that I’m a reliable and good friend.

But I still find myself going back to that negative talk every once in awhile. And it’s really hard to step back and realize that “Hey!” I’m being way too hard on myself. To remedy that I came up with a way to give myself that reminder that I’m doing the best I can. If you are a parks and recreation fan then you will know about this one… treat yo’ self! 😉

Seriously, all you ladies out there… treat yourself. At the end of the day, the most important person that needs to love you IS you.

One of the things that has really helped me to combat negative talk and to recognize the good within myself was to make a list at the end of each day of things that I did well. This did wonders for me… even the smallest victory is still a victory, but I tended to forget about those small victories over the course of the day. Thinking back and recognizing those moments of strength for me really did something to my mind. I went to bed feeling good because well… who wouldn’t be happy about the good things that happened during the day?

Here is another thing, and I know! It doesn’t seem revolutionary but it IS. Do things that you enjoy doing. I don’t know about you, but I suck at this. You would think that I would always be doing things that I enjoy but my time seems to get sucked up by one thing or the other. Once I get home from work, I am lazy mcgee. Before I know it, my evening is gone and I feel exhausted. It’s almost like I need to give myself permission to treat myself nicely. I guess it turns out that I DO need to give myself that permission.

When I’m out, I don’t overly restrict myself. If I see something yummy, I treat myself. Just recently I was so excited to see that you could buy Cokes with your name on them at Walmart! When I was younger, I could never find my name on anything. But I’ll tell you a little secret… I used to tell people my name was Amber! I love my name now, but I never knew anyone with that name then. I hated it! I distinctly remember Autumn being a spelling word in 4th grade and my classmates complaining that it wasn’t fair. I guess since my name wasn’t common my teachers would always call me Amber since it was sort of close. So for awhile there, I was Amber! I had a good laugh when I found it on a Coke bottle and had to pick it up. It might be a novelty but it brought back so many memories of my childhood. 🙂 If you want to see if they have your name, you can check it here.

Just recently, I decided to take some culinary classes even though I have no plans to enter the culinary industry! I’ve always been interested but wouldn’t take the class because it was a waste of money. Why is it a waste of money though if it’s something I enjoy?

One of the things that I really enjoy and miss doing is reading books. When I was younger, you wouldn’t be able to find me without a book in my hand! I loved to get lost in those books. Now that I make it a habit to read a bit before sleeping I feel so much happier. It’s crazy that you have to consciously “schedule” yourself to do things that make you happy, but sometimes you do! I was listening to a podcast last week about Americans and our lack of vacation time and it kinda rung a bell for me on this topic. We always feel like we need to be working on something, learning and just “getting ahead of the game”. But the truth is, we need that downtime to do things we enjoy, rest and avoid burnout!

To be honest, I started thinking about this topic and putting more effort into loving myself because a friend of mine committed suicide about a month ago. It was a shock – I couldn’t believe it! From my point of view, my friend kind of had it all… she was pursuing something she loved, had a beautiful personality and kept herself active. I really looked up to how she respected the environment, ate healthy and her kind personality. I felt a really deep sadness about it all… that she felt so sad that she felt the only way out was to kill herself. I’m still at a loss for what to say even as I type this month, a month after the fact. I’ve just resolved myself to treat myself better and love myself, faults and all. There are people out there who love me, appreciate me, maybe even admire me! We are all those people. We deserve to treat ourselves well!

Q: Do you practice conscious self-love?

Here is a list of Walmart stores where you can find a large quantity of personalized Coca Cola bottles to share with someone this Summer! Walmart has the widest and most organized selection of Coca-Cola personalized 20 oz bottles so finding your name is as easy as possible! If your store is not on the list you can still find these bottles at all Walmart locations.